Su Yun looked up, her face completely serious. "No need. You handled today's matter very well, and I'm extremely satisfied. Consider these clothes my reward to you."
As soon as Gu Hai heard that, he lifted his foot and started taking off his shoes. "Then I'll return the sneakers to you."
Although he said that, he kept the same pose for quite a while, yet not a single shoe came off.
Instead, he kept glancing at Su Yun with great anticipation.
Su Yun finally surrendered. "You can keep the shoes too!"
Gu Hai instantly beamed with happiness. "Comrade Xiao Su, you're really generous!"
Unable to help herself, Su Yun rolled her eyes at him and handed over the promised fifty cents as his wages.
The unspoken meaning was clear: take the money and leave quickly.
Gu Hai understood immediately. He changed back into his old clothes and shoes and left.
---
That afternoon, in the Gu family's small courtyard.
Three teenagers helped Gu Hai carry the two hundred jin of rice and flour along with the eggs into the room. Eight-year-old Gu Jun followed behind them with wide eyes, almost drooling.
After they finished storing the rice and flour, one of the boys finally asked in disbelief,
"Brother Hai, those old broken things we collected yesterday really got exchanged for all this rice, flour, and eggs?"
"Are you blind? The stuff is right here. How could it be fake?" another boy said, slapping him on the head.
The boy who got hit grinned foolishly. "It just feels like a dream. Yesterday that bag of junk only cost us five yuan, yet it turned into two hundred jin of rice and flour. It's unbelievable!"
"Brother Hai is amazing. As long as we follow Brother Hai, we'll never go hungry!"
After they finished talking, Gu Hai spoke seriously.
"Brothers, for the next while, we won't be collecting scrap anymore. Instead, everyone should go around the streets every day buying old items from people. But keep your eyes sharp—don't let anyone trick you."
"Also, tonight call Gouzi and the others over. Tomorrow you'll all go out with me to handle something. Each of you will get fifty cents for the job."
When they heard the word wages, the boys immediately became excited.
"Brother Hai, what are we doing?"
"Don't ask so many questions. You'll find out tomorrow."
---
The next day, before dawn, Gu Hai drove a large truck to the entrance of the recycling station.
Using the key Su Yun had given him, he opened the gate. The moment he stepped into the courtyard, the seven or eight boys following him all opened their mouths wide and stared in shock.
Before them were mountains of rice, flour, and vegetables.
"My god! Whose family is so wealthy to buy this much food?"
"Stop staring! Time is short—start loading everything onto the truck!"
At Gu Hai's command, the boys hurried to work. Their feet moved like the wind as they ran back and forth. Not long after the first light of dawn appeared, the small mountains of supplies had all been loaded onto the truck.
After closing the truck doors, Gu Hai handed the keys to the boy beside him and gave a few instructions.
"Gouzi, I'm leaving this matter to you."
The boy nodded. "Brother Hai, don't worry. We brothers will definitely handle it well. Your identity won't be revealed."
---
As the sun rose, the gate of the steel factory was filled with workers coming and going to change shifts.
Inside the Procurement Department, Xia Xingguo was pacing restlessly. As soon as he received a call from the gatehouse, he dashed out of his office.
He ran so fast that he even lost one shoe along the way, yet he reached the gate in just three minutes.
Seeing the large truck parked outside, Xia Xingguo pushed through the crowd of curious workers without even catching his breath. He pulled out the contract from his coat pocket and handed it over with a bright smile.
"Little brother, I'm Xia Xingguo. I'm the one who ordered this batch of supplies!"
Gouzi stood beside the truck and glanced at the contract.
"That's right. Everything listed here is on the truck. You can check it yourself."
With a wave of his hand, the other boys immediately opened the truck doors, revealing the truck filled to the brim with supplies.
"!!!"
The surrounding workers instantly gasped.
Xia Xingguo could hardly stop smiling. He randomly pointed to several familiar workers and shouted loudly,
"You guys, come help unload this batch of grain and oil for our steel factory!"
As soon as he said that, even workers who hadn't been called stepped forward to help.
Within fifteen minutes, all the supplies had been unloaded and stacked inside the Procurement Department's warehouse.
Xia Xingguo then asked Gouzi how he should pay for the goods.
Gouzi waved his hand casually.
"I'm only responsible for delivering the goods. Collecting payment isn't my job. Whoever you made the deal with—just give the money to them. Your factory is so big. It's not like I'm worried you'll run away."
After saying that, Gouzi called the boys onto the truck and drove off.
Xia Xingguo was stunned by their generosity.
Five thousand yuan worth of goods—five thousand!
And they had simply delivered everything without taking a single cent in advance.
It seemed that Brother Gu was truly someone worth befriending.
Thinking this, Xia Xingguo walked back into the steel factory gate with great admiration for Gu Hai.
---
When Su Yun arrived at the recycling station that day, she noticed clear signs that the ground had been cleaned.
She felt quite satisfied.
After buying that batch of supplies last night, her system balance had dropped to 6,057.6 yuan. She was now further away from being a ten-thousand-yuan household again, which meant she would still have to sit on her wooden stool today.
Throughout the morning, people came one after another to sell scrap. Su Yun greeted them warmly, and before long it was already noon.
At lunchtime, she took out her lunchbox from her shoulder bag and lit the small stove to heat it up.
Yesterday when she returned home, she had found a broken basket and packed all the sample items she had bought—rice, flour, meat, eggs, and vegetables—into it. She covered them with scrap wood and carried them home.
Whenever anyone asked, she simply said that her family had run out of coal briquettes, so she brought back some scrap wood from the recycling station to use as fuel.
To her family, however, she explained that those things were a thank-you gift from that strange collector.
When she opened the lunchbox, the aroma of rice mixed with stir-fried vegetables filled the air. Su Yun took a satisfied bite and sighed happily.
This was what a good life should be like.
Just after she finished eating, Xia Xingguo arrived at the recycling station carrying a briefcase.
The moment he entered, Su Yun heard his loud voice.
"Oh, Su Yun! Already finished lunch?"
Su Yun quickly packed up her lunchbox and stood up with a smile.
"Uncle Xia, why did you come at this time? Is something the matter?"
Wearing a gray work uniform and holding his briefcase, Xia Xingguo stood in front of the counter with a cheerful expression.
"Su Yun, to be honest, I've been doing procurement for more than twenty years, but I've never met anyone as generous as Brother Gu. Early this morning, he dropped off the supplies and left without taking any payment. I don't know where to find him, so I came to look for you."
Hearing this, Su Yun thought to herself:
You came to the right person!
Suppressing her excitement, she put on an obedient expression.
"Uncle Xia, you may not know this, but Comrade Gu has a strange hobby of collecting antiques. After signing the contract with you yesterday, he immediately went to the countryside overnight. I heard someone there has a genuine item he's very interested in."
"He told me that you can just give the payment to me. When he has time later, he'll come here to collect it."
"Uncle Xia, don't worry. I promise I'll give every cent of the money to Comrade Gu."